INCIS Soap Opera Looks Destined To Head To Court

The INCIS soap opera's latest twist yesterday was an
unexpected one with IBM calling it a day. Now all parties
are crying havoc and have let slip the dogs of legal
action.

The overdue project to make information technology
a useful tool for police has so far cost more than $132
million dollars, more than $35 million over the initial
budget and three years late in completion.

IBM's version
of events seems to be at this stage that the Police kept
changing the contract and when asked to renegotiate the
police and government had been obdurate.

However
conflicting stories are emerging over why IBM has pulled
out.

IBM pulled out saying that the contract was now far
different and more complex to that originally agreed upon
between the police and IBM.

IBM spokesman Fred McNeese
who is based in Tokyo said the contract originally signed
up to by IBM was continually changing. In the 4000 page
contract 900 changes had been made.

Mr McNeese said that
left IBM doing additional work without being paid for it.

Mr McNeese said the police nowl have a sophisticated
system that's infinitely better than the old one.

It
seems likely that now the Government and IBM are headed for
a court battle.

Finance Minister Sir William Birch
said this morning that the Government will either try to
force IBM to honour the contract, or will seek compensation,
and he isn't ruling out litigation.

Sir William, who was
brought in several weeks ago as a troubleshooter, said IBM
had offered to complete the contract, but on terms
different to those in the original agreement. He said that
was unacceptable to the Government.

In turn Sir William
Birch said IBM had advised the Crown that it would not
honour its INCIS contract obligations.

At present police
are left with just stage one of the project operational -
the most basic level. The critical crime-fighting parts -
stages two and three - remain incomplete.

Cabinet
approved INCIS five years ago, and it was expected to be up
and running by March 1998.

However the cost blew out to
$119 million by December 1997 as problems escalated. This
year, with the project nearly three years behind schedule,
the final cost was estimated at $132 million.

IBM says it
is reassigning the staff who have been working on the
project. About 125 consultants have been told their role
developing stage two and three of INCIS is now over.

All
along Incis has been promoted by the Police Commissioner
Peter Doone who is now under increasing pressure to keep his
job.

Commenting on this Police Association spokesman Greg
O'Connor said "it is pretty hard for the man who has been
in charge of the project right from the start to walk away
from it".

"That is something Doone is going to have to
sort out with his employers," O'Connor said.

Meanwhile
Labour's police spokesman, George Hawkins, is calling for a
commission of inquiry into what went wrong.

"If there is
not a full inquiry I think most New Zealanders will feel
doubly cheated - by $100 million and then by not having
answers supplied," he said.

IBM says it has made no
profit from the Incis project - in fact the computer giant
says it has lost a significant amount of money trying to
implement the system.

It says legal action to recover
those losses is one option IBM is investigating.

This
morning Police Commissioner Peter Doone was interviewed on
National Radio's morning report and said the police still
planned to complete the project.

He implied that the
police was investigating options including using other
computer companies to complete the project to its original
design - which he described as a great
design.

Alastair Thompson is the co-founder of Scoop. He is of Scottish and Irish extraction and from Wellington, New Zealand. Alastair has 24 years experience in the media, at the Dominion, National Business Review, North & South magazine, Straight Furrow newspaper and online since 1997. He is the winner of several journalism awards for business and investigative work.

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